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The Cathedral: Iconic Heart of the University

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“The building was to be more than a schoolhouse; it was to
be a symbol of the life that Pittsburgh through the years had wanted to live,” Chancellor John G. Bowman wrote of Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning.

The Gothic Revival skyscraper that Bowman commissioned in 1921 inspired
local industries to donate steel, cement, elevators, glass, plumbing, and
heating elements. Thousands of adults today still have the certificates they
received as school children upon contributing 10 cents, which they had earned
themselves, to “’buy a brick” for the Cathedral.

In 2007, on the 70th anniversary of the Cathedral’s dedication, Pitt
trustees approved a project to clean and restore the iconic building. Its
interior upgraded and its limestone exterior scrubbed of industrial grime, the
building today fulfills, more than ever, Chancellor Bowman’s original vision of
it:

[The Cathedral] was to
make visible something of the spirit that was in the hearts of pioneers as,
long ago, they sat in their log cabins and thought by candlelight of the great
city that would sometime spread out beyond their three rivers and that even
they were starting to build.

A landmark listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the
Cathedral is the tallest educational building in the Western Hemisphere.